Category: Joe Gresh

ExhaustNotes Travel:  The Bisti Badlands Of New Mexico

By Joe Gresh

In the northwest quadrant of New Mexico there’s a lonely, two lane highway numbered 371 that runs north from the small town of Thoreau on Interstate 40 to Farmington. About 30 miles south of Farmington, on the east side of Highway 371 is a place called the Bisti Badlands in the De-Na-Zin Wilderness. The Badlands are where you can find the ever-patient hoo-doo’s standing watch over mankind as we scurry around like red ants on our disturbed mound. Not ageless, the rock formations and strangely eroded pedestals found in the Bisti slowly change over time. Unless a stone topples to the ground you might spend a lifetime observing and never notice the backs of the old ones ceding to gravity’s incessant pull.

CT and I left Farmington around 9:00 a.m. and drove to the Bisti where we met Gilbert, who works as a guide for Navajo Tours USA, a Native American company that operates in Chaco Canyon and Shiprock as well as the Bisti Badlands. These guys are good and it’s not just me.  National Geographic thinks so too.

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Gilbert is Navajo and has like 16 different jobs, guiding tourists through the Bisti being one of them. Along with Gilbert, me, and CT was Sasha. Sasha spoke with a heavy accent; she sounded like she was from an eastern European country or maybe Texas. Her husband and young son dropped her off at the Bisti parking area and as soon as they were satisfied we weren’t ax murderers they fled the scene. Sasha said they were tired of hiking around New Mexico and were going back to Farmington to rest.

Bisti Badlands is one of those places that doesn’t look like much from the parking area. There was only a sun-faded, Bisti Badlands map under scratched Plexiglas in an information kiosk to identify that we had arrived at the correct spot. The map looked as old and bleak as the landscape it described. I looked across a wide, shallow expanse of hard packed, barren dirt and wondered where the heck we were going to hike. I mean, there’s nothing out there.   Do we just walk out into the center of the desolate valley? Gilbert laid out a northeasterly route that would hit some of the high points of the Badlands. We opened a red pipe gate, stepped high over a large diameter cross bar between the gateposts, and started hiking.

Gilbert and Sasha were way younger and fitter. At first they appeared to have an ambling pace yet I would have to break into a canter every few hundred yards to catch up with them. I tried matching Gilbert’s stride one for one but he still pulled steadily away. I decided he was using some secret Navajo walking method taught only to tribe members. Sasha I figured to be a hiking ringer, one of those chicks that walks 75 miles before breakfast and drinks raw egg smoothies.

After a couple miles of hiking we started to get into an area that resembled the promotional materials for the Bisti Badlands. Large stones sat atop thin spires of Tuff, relatively soft volcanic ash and debris that had solidified. But Tuff isn’t all that solid hence the ground underneath the stones eroded before the harder top rock. We walked past huge piles of what appeared to be broken terra cotta clay. Gilbert explained that the section we were in has a low-grade coal seam running just beneath the surface. In the shallow valley by the parking lot you could see the darker stripe of coal. When the coal catches fire it bakes the clay above changing its color to red. This joint is one big, open-air kiln.

At the Bisti Pyramid Gilbert stopped for a rest. CT and I sat down on a stone. Gilbert lulled us into a stupor with his gentle voice telling tales of the Badlands. Sasha ran around the crazy rocks snapping photos. She reminded me of a Jack Russell Terrier. Too soon we were on our way again.

Our surroundings became more surreal, like we were walking through a Salvador Dali painting. I realized that I had no idea where we were and was so turned around I couldn’t tell which way was back. Gilbert pulled us in for another rest break and told Sasha we were going to stay here until she got back and to not wander out of sight. Sasha went climbing around with her giant Canon DSLR getting shots of rocks from every conceivable angle. Sasha oozed vigor and health. I started to wish I had gone back to town with her husband and son. They were probably drinking in a smoky bar somewhere.

Gilbert told us stories about getting lost in the Badlands at night. I was thinking about the cold, clear New Mexico night and looked around.  The only wood to burn was petrified. I sure didn’t want to start that coal seam on fire and end up like those baked clay fragments. Gilbert pointed me to a cell phone tower off in the distance. See that? he said. That tower is on Highway 371. If you get lost head for the tower; at night it has a flashing light on top.

We went further into the rough terrain; the flat lands were far behind. Stone shapes became more dramatic and impossible. We were in the Bisti Badlands proper and no mistaking it.

My feet were killing me. I asked Gilbert how much further before we start heading back to the cars. He said that we are almost at the turn around point. It had been ten miles at least, maybe more.

In the afternoon we started to head back. We were kind of quiet, just stumbling along in a near-death state of mind. I judged our distance traveled to be 25 miles. At last the parking area came into view. We were still 30 miles away but at least I could see our car and the restrooms.

At a turn in the path approximately 40 miles from the car parking area Gilbert said that Sasha wanted to explore the southern parts of the Bisti Badlands. We said to go on without us and that we would be fine as we could see the cars only 50 miles away. Gilbert said he would walk back to the cars with us to make sure and Sasha would wait for him to return where they could continue exploring the Bisti area. We made it on sore feet but we made it to the car. Gilbert showed us again on the map the route we had taken. I asked him how far we had traveled all total. Gilbert said 5 1/2 miles. And that’s how it is in the Bisti Badlands. Distances can be deceiving. If you are in the Bisti area look up Navajo Tours. You’ll have a fun hike and won’t get lost and die like the dumb tourist you are. I recommend them highly but don’t try to keep pace with Sasha.

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Chinese Diesel Heat: Part 2

By Joe Gresh

There are a couple styles of these Chinese heaters. I bought the all-in-one, suitcase version. My Chinese heater came mostly assembled and all I had to do was rig up the included exhaust pipe, air intake, output duct, and connect a 12-volt battery. If you’re going to install the heater in a van I think the version broken into separate parts would be a better choice. In fact, maybe it’s the better choice regardless.

My suitcase Chinese heater works okay but you can smell diesel fuel even when it’s not operating because the fuel tank cap is vented. It’s not a strong smell and my shed is pretty drafty. If my shed was sealed tighter the fumes would be more noticeable. The heat output has no diesel smell but it has some sort of odor I can’t quite place, maybe it’s the plastic housing covering the heater cooking off or it could be the smell of air on hot aluminum. Anyway, it’s not an objectionable smell and I remain fully conscious when the heater is running.

Installation was a breeze and only took about 30 minutes. I mounted the unit on two recycled pieces of 2×6 form wood to get the exhaust pipe high enough to go over the shed sill and punched a 1-inch hole in the shed wall for the combustion gas exhaust.

For the combustion air intake I simply strapped the air filter to the side of the heater with a tie wrap. I was kind of excited to see if the Chinese heater would actually heat so I hung the output pipe in mid-air and connected a 12-volt lawn mower battery for power.

My unit came with the cheapest controller available and maybe that’s because I bought the cheapest available heater. I can’t say. The poorly written installation manual gave a “5-push on the unit’s start-stop button while holding the remote control button down” type of pairing instruction. After a few tries I was surprised that the remote control linked up with the heater and could turn the machine on and off. In Chinese Heater: Part 1 I mused about replacing the control with a fancier unit but after seeing the el cheapo in action I’ll just stay with it until it breaks.

These Chinese heaters follow an automated start up process. First the blower comes on at slow speed, then the glow plug (or igniter) starts heating a small metal screen in the combustion chamber. Next, the fuel pump starts pulsing to supply fuel to the combustion chamber. A few minutes after pushing the on button you’ll hear the fuel ignite with a muffled roar and the blower will pick up speed. In the final step the glow plug turns off and the unit burns the diesel fuel from the red hot metal screen. If anything goes wrong with the startup the heater will try again. You really get an amazing amount of technology for 120 bucks.

Of the ten times I’ve started it my machine failed to launch once, but on the next try it was ok. The heater puts out a fairly good stream of heat and in a smaller space it would work well. Unfortunately, my large, steel shed has zero insulation and gaping holes everywhere so the unit had to be run flat out to effect any change in the shed temperature.

It took about 30 minutes to raise the shed temp from 42 degrees to 48 degrees and that was about as warm as it got. That’s still better than no heat at all. I think if I had three more Chinese heaters I could get it nice and warm inside.

Shutting down the Chinese heater takes about 5 minutes as the blower keeps running until the combustion chamber cools down. Shutdown is also fully automated and all you have to do is press the power button until the remote displays off and then wait. It’s probably not a good idea to cut 12-volt power to the unit during shutdown, as the plastic heater housing would probably not like that.

One of the reasons I recommend the break-down version is that you are free to mount the fuel tank outside. In fact, you could mount the entire unit outside and poke two holes for a return air and hot air registers. Mount the control panel on the wall and you don’t even have to go outside to turn the little beast on. Outside installation would eliminate any diesel odors, as you would have only warm air pumping into your shed. The entire combustion cycle would be on the other side of the wall, free to stink up the planet.

Noise is another concern that favors outside installation. My Chinese heater made a bit of noise. You hear the burning process, it sounds like a furnace kicking in but quieter and the blower makes normal blower noises depending on what power level the machine is operating. The fuel pump has a slight ticking noise that isn’t noticeable at high power/high blower speed. As you turn down the heat output the blower gets much quieter and the pump ticking becomes more noticeable. None of this matters in my situation because it’s a shed and I run the heater at full power all the time. The heater isn’t so loud that you can’t carry on a conversation standing next to it.

Once I was sure I was going to keep the little heater I bent a piece of sheet metal to hold the ductwork. Without a brace the hose kind of wiggled around, describing a figure eight in space.

As a test, I marked the fuel level of the see through tank and added 1 quart of diesel fuel. The heater ran over two hours at full power on that quart. Of course if you turned it down like you would in a van or RV it would burn even less fuel. 1.7hz was the lowest power setting, meaning the fuel pump cycled 1.7 times per second. 5.5hz was the highest setting. I’m not sure it works like this but if 5.5hz burns a quart every two hours then a setting somewhere south of 3hz should double your fuel mileage and halve your heat output.

Since the shed is off-grid and runs on solar power I have tons of 12-volt DC power available. There are 12 deep cycle batteries on a rack outside the building and a 12-volt breaker panel but I don’t have any conduit to where the heater is located. These heater units use a good bit of DC power when first starting, maybe 8 amps or so. Once the glow plug shuts off the unit runs on the red-hot screen that surrounds the glow plug, kind of like an old Cox .049 model airplane engine. With only the blower running my 2-amp trickle charger kept up with the demand. If you are using the heater in a van make sure you don’t drain your battery running the heater.

I’ve ordered a temporary, 15-amp, 12-volt power supply to run the heater off 120VAC. Eventually I will get around to connecting the heater to my battery bank. There is a drop of around 1-volt between what the remote display says is available at the heater and the actual battery voltage measured at the battery terminals. I might run some heavier wires to the heater control board. Most likely I won’t worry about the voltage drop because I just like saying voltage drop.

From my online research the only parts that go wrong with these Chinese heaters are glow plug failures and blower motor bearings. These problems don’t seem to crop up until a few years have passed. Parts are available and cheap for the heater so it should last a good long time with regular service. After a few years of running dirty fuel oil the combustion chamber may soot up requiring a clean out. Again, the gasket kits needed for this procedure are easy to find online. There’s a vibrant Chinese heater community on the Internet. It’s like owning a CSC RX3 adventure motorcycle.

The heater works and it produces heat, which is all it promised to do. My unit is rated at 8kw, which works out to 27,000 BTUs. I’ll still need to wear a jacket in the winter. Future modifications may be to relocate the combustion air intake to the outside so I don’t suck my hard-earned, heated shed-air into the combustion chamber and out the exhaust. Maybe I’ll move the whole magilla outside. A carbon monoxide alarm in the shed wouldn’t hurt either. I think if your shed is maybe 20 X 20 feet and well insulated the Chinese heater would work well. If you are into the Van Life thing a Chinese heater could be just the ticket to stay warm without running the van engine.

In the future I’m going to try recycling my used motor oil at 25% used oil to 75% diesel. I have a lot of old motor oil and I might as well use it to heat instead of pouring it into the Autolube tank on my Yamaha like my buddy Hunter does. If you decide to get one of these heaters let us know how it works for you.

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Part 1 of  the Chinese heater saga!

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The Wayback Machine: Mr. Bray

By Joe Gresh

I didn’t start out working for Mr. Bray. He was a deep red construction foreman who had been baking in the Florida sun all his life. His nose looked like Bob Hope’s except God had pressed his thumb into Mr. Bray’s right nostril and kind of smooshed the thing to the side. Mr. Bray ran projects all around Miami. I was a laborer helping my dad who was an equipment operator. The main job of labor for an equipment operator is to never let the operator get off the machine. Anything that needed to be done in order to keep him in his seat was my responsibility.

Mr. Bray had hired my dad to do the earthwork on a shopping center he was building in North Miami. I was a hard worker because I wanted to make some seed money and go back to California. I was taking growth hormones and steroids at the time. It was all I could do not to tear the footings out of the ground with my bare hands. The meds were prescription: Starting with a 5-foot tall, 98-pound body the pills added 6 inches in height and 27 pounds in acne over 3 years. I had abundance of energy, man. I tore around the construction site like a banshee. Mr. Bray liked a hard worker, drug-induced or not, so he hired me away from my dad just by offering twice the money.

The job was Union, which meant I had to join one. Mr. Bray had connections at the carpenter’s local so he arraigned for my union card. This was a big deal because normally you’d have to wait in line to join and then you’d have to wait in line until the Union sent you out on a job. It might take several years to clear the backlog. I was a First Period Apprentice without missing a paycheck.

When I got that paycheck it was a disappointment. The Union dues sapped a lot, then the federal and state deductions sapped some more. My dad paid cash, you know? I ended up making less money than before. Mr. Bray had pulled strings to get me in but I showed him my pay stub anyway. “That’s not so good, is it?” Mr. Bray said. I told him that it wasn’t but that I would carry on. I mean I had taken the deal; I felt obligated. “Lemme see what I can do about it,” Mr. Bray told me.

The next paycheck I received my rating was Third Period Apprentice (equivalent to 1-1/2 years of experience and passing several written tests) and I was making 8 dollars an hour. This was more money than I had ever made in my lifetime. From then on my loyalties were clear. I was Mr. Bray’s boy. If he needed a body buried on the site I would do it faster and better than anyone else.

Mr. Bray’s crew consisted of a journeyman carpenter, a mid-level carpenter, a laborer and me. In practice, we weren’t tied to a trade. I might have to do a little wiring, relocate pipe or dig a foundation. We formed all the foundations, then the steel workers would tie the steel and we would pour the concrete. These were non-cosmetic jobs. For slabs we hired a crew of finishers.

It didn’t set well with the other guys when Mr. Bray made me the foreman the few times he had to go off site. I only had like two months of construction experience but had absorbed a lot more knowledge just by being around my dad. The journeyman carpenter got sulky taking orders from a third period apprentice.

I have never been a leader of men. My approach to management is to tell everyone to stay the hell out of my way and I’ll do it myself. Surprisingly it worked in this instance because these guys still had remnants of a conscience. We usually got more done when Mr. Bray was gone.

Mr. Bray used my size to motivate the crew. Whenever there was something heavy to move the guys would bitch and want a crane. “Gresh, put that plank on the roof.”  That was all I needed to hear. I was a greyhound shot out of a gate. I’d shoulder the 10-inch wide, 20-footer, run full tilt at the building, spear the end of the board into the ground like a pole vaulter and walk the board vertical onto the wall. While the rest of the crew shook their heads in pity I’d run up the ladder and grab the board, hand-over-handing the thing until I could rest it onto my shoulder. Putting the wood onto the roof took about 45 seconds.

The whole thing had a creepy, Cool-Hand-Luke-when-he-was-acting-broken vibe but I wasn’t acting. It was more an act of unreasonable anger. I wanted to get stuff done. It was all that mattered to me. Mr. Bray would turn to the guys and say “Look at Gresh, he did it easy. You don’t need a crane. Now put the rest of those damn boards up there.” Picturing the guys pole-vaulting the boards up one by one I’ll never understand why they didn’t beat the crap out of me when Mr. Bray turned his back.

Another Union trade on a construction job are the bricklayers. They would put up walls on the foundations we poured.  The floors were left dirt to allow new tenants to choose the interior layout.  After they put up the walls we would tie the steel and form the gaps between sections of wall then pour them full of concrete. The poured columns made a sturdy wall. Unfortunately, being only 8 inches wide, the wall is very fragile until the concrete columns are in.

Mr. Bray was always looking for ways to save the company money and as my dad’s equipment was still on site he would have me do small operator jobs rather than have my dad drive to the site and charge him. We needed a trench for something, I can’t remember what but since we only had a 14-inch bucket it didn’t matter. I was digging inches away from a wall with the backhoe at 45 degrees to allow the bucket to dump the spoil. I could only put one outrigger down because the wall was too close. The whole setup was wobbly and when a return swing ran a bit wide the boom tapped the wall. Not hard, it didn’t even chip the blocks.

It happened so slowly. The wall teetered. I pulled the boom away. I was wishing it to settle down. The wall tottered. More thoughts and prayers were directed at the wall. Slowly the wall went over and smashed into pieces. After checking to see that I didn’t kill anyone I went to Mr. Bray. “Um…we have a problem, Mr. Bray.”

He was marking stuff on his critical path chart. “What is it, Gresh?”

“You better come take a look.”

We walked over to the crushed wall. I explained everything like I just did. Mr. Bray was fighting some inner demons for sure. Finally his face relaxed and he said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll tell the bricklayers the wind blew it over.” Man, I loved that guy.

From my dad I learned a perfectionism that I have rarely been able to equal. From Mr. Bray I learned that perfection is a great goal but the job needs to get done because another trade is waiting on you. Mr. Bray would let a lot of things slide that my dad would obsess over. Working for Mr. Bray was much less stressful and customers inside the finished shoe store could not tell the difference.

The shopping center was nearly done. I had worked for Mr. Bray 6 months. I had a couple thousand dollars saved and told him I was going back to California. “Why don’t you stay on? I’ll train you in construction management, you’ll be a journeyman carpenter in 5 years and you’ll be running jobs like this.”

Mr. Bray was offering me his most valuable gift. He was offering me everything he had: To pass his lifetime of knowledge on to me. I had to go back to California though and I left feeling like I had let Mr. Bray down in the end. And even today I’m not settled. I’m still trying to finish the damn job.

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From all of us to all of you:  Merry Christmas!

Chinese Diesel Heat: Part 1

By Joe Gresh 

It’s starting to get a little cold here at Tinfiny Ranch. Our nights drop to the mid 20’s and the sunny days top out somewhere in the mid 50’s. That’s not very cold compared to the northern states but it’s still cold enough to make working in the shed less than comfortable. Part of the problem is the shed itself: Made of thin sheet metal with zero insulation, the inside of the shed tends to mirror the outside temperature within a few degrees. Before you tell me to insulate the shed know that it costs nearly as much as the shed to insulate the thing and that I am thrifty.

I suffer in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer. Summer isn’t as bad because I can open the four big roll-up doors and get some air moving through the building. Winter is harder to deal with so I bought one of those Chinese diesel heaters that you’ve read about in all the larger heater-centric publications like “Chinese Heater Digest” or “Hot Asians!” magazines. I took the plunge into oil burning and am here to tell you about it.

Chinese diesel heaters have a huge YouTube community.  There are hundreds of videos describing installation, modification, how to burn waste oil, hydraulic oil and any other type of oil. The phrase “Chinese heater” encompasses dozens of factories producing hundreds of Webasco and Espar clones. The price difference is incredible: A real Webasco 2000-watt diesel heater will cost around $1300 while I picked up the 8kw Vevor clone version for $119 with shipping included. You have to really dislike China to pay $1200 more for essentially the same item. The build quality is slightly better on the brand name units but functionally they are the same. You can find comparison videos on YouTube if you are interested in the minor differences.

Normally I buy a lot of junk from Amazon. I know I shouldn’t because Bezos has all the money and maybe it would be better if we spread it around a bit. For the Chinese heater purchase I decided to try EBay and give a different multi-billionaire my money. Unfortunately, the ultra low price I paid blinded me to some important control module downgrades. Anyway, Bezos gave Dolly Parton 100 million dollars for her charity work so he’s back in my good graces.

My EBay heater came securely packed with only minor damage to one of the mounting flanges. Everything you need for installation was included except for two triple A batteries for the remote control and diesel fuel for the tank.

The instruction manual’s translation was in the style of a 1960’s Japanese motorcycle owner’s manual and if anything was even more cryptic. I found it easier to watch several YouTube videos as the manual was nearly useless.

The cheaper, cheap Vevor Chinese version I bought came with the simplest control. A large push button turned the heater on and off. A remote control allows for changing power output by speeding up or slowing down the fuel pump (measured in pump-cycle hz). The startup and shutdown sequence is fully automated and several steps long. This is where I wish I had the better control panel as it shows each step of the process. I am kind of in the dark with the controller supplied. I’m never sure what the thing is doing or where in the sequence we are. It costs $30 for the good controller, negating any money I saved getting the cheaper, cheap Chinese model. I should have bitten the bullet and bought this one from Amazon.

Like the good chair at your house, the good controller does everything better. It shows fan speed in RPM, glow plug status, combustion cycle, and displays any error codes in alphanumeric format instead of blinking lights. You can also prime the fuel pump a little easier with the good controller. The heater works exactly the same but you feel better about it.

You get a couple feet of exhaust tubing and a little muffler for the combustion gas exhaust. If you are installing the heater in a van or RV you’ll probably need a longer pipe.

For combustion air intake you get a coarse, plastic air filter that will stop large animals from climbing inside the air intake pipe. Also included are a duct pipe, a register, and a bunch of clamps, screws and small parts.

In Chinese Diesel Heat Part 2 we will assemble and install the diesel heater and see how it performs. Internet reviews on these heaters are all over the map. Some people say they are junk, some say they are equal to the expensive units. With the variations of quality coming out of various Chinese factories, both camps may be right. I’ve found any product that requires installation or mechanical ability to use seems to garner more negative reviews. I suspect some of those bad reviews are installer created problems.

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The Wayback Machine: That’s Not How We Do It In China

By Joe Gresh

See that gap?  That narrow space between the semi-truck hauling 20-foot long, 6-inch diameter solid aluminum rods and the BMW M6? I’m taking it, man, riding the horn button and twisting the throttle: zoom-zoom. See that intersection? The one with a whirlpool of scooters, three-wheeled single-cylinder diesel trucks and at least a hundred cars spinning left leaving eddys of pedestrians lapping at the edges? I’m a Hurricane Hunter riding straight into the maelstrom buffeted from side to side, tip-toeing around, swerving, cussing, sweating and focused, man, focused.

China’s city traffic requires all your intensity, taxes all your ability and is like nothing I have ever seen on the planet. There is no respite. There is no pause, You must lock on and track hundreds of individual trajectories from every point on the compass, constantly. Insane traffic scenarios unfold at a lightning pace, there’s no time to marvel at the stupidity. There’s only time to act.

The chaos is cultural: Chinese motorists drive like they’re riding a bicycle because they were only a few years ago. In less than one generation the Chinese have gone from pedals to 125cc Honda clones to driving millions of air-conditioned automobiles on surface streets designed for a sleepy agricultural nation. At any given moment dozens of traffic rules are being broken within 50 feet of your motorcycle. It’s a traffic cop’s dream.

Except that there aren’t any. For a Police State there are not many police in China. I’ve ridden entire days and not seen one Po-Po. My Chinese friends tell me the police show up for collisions but otherwise stay low-key. Because of this hands-off approach stop signs are ignored. Red lights mean slow down. You can make a left turn from the far right lane and no one bats an eye.

China uses the drive-on-the-right system but in reality left-side driving is popular with large trucks and speeding German sedans. Get out of the way or die, sucker. Painted lane-stripes are mere suggestions: Drive anywhere you like. Of course, sidewalks and breakdown lanes are fair game for cutting to the front of the cue.

China’s modernization process has happened so fast that the leap from two-wheeled utility vehicle to motorcycles as powersports fun never really occurred. In China there are millions of people riding motorcycles but relatively few motorcyclists.

If the cars don’t get you there are other strange rules that serve to dampen the popularity of Chinese motorcycling as a hobby. Motorcycles are banned on most major toll ways between cities. Law-abiding motorcyclists are shunted off to the old, meandering side roads. Which would be fun if they weren’t so infested with heavy, slow moving semi-trucks and near certain construction delays. In practice, since tollbooths have no ability to charge motorcyclists, Chinese riders blow through the far right lane, swerving to avoid the tollgate’s swinging arm. Ignore the bells, shouting and wild gestures of the toll-takers and roll the throttle on, brother.

Being banned from the highway is not a deal breaker, but being banned from entire cities is. In response to crimes committed by bad guys on motorcycles many cities remedied the problem by eliminating motorcycles altogether. Sales of new motorcycles in these forbidden cities is non-existent.

Rules designed to discourage motorcycling abound. Vehicles over 10 years old are not allowed to be registered, thus killing the used and vintage scene. Gasoline stations require motorcyclists to park far from the gas pumps and ferry fuel to their bikes in open-topped gas cans. Add to that the general opinion of the public that motorcycle riders are shifty losers too poor to afford a car.

So why do Chinese motorcyclists bother to ride at all? It’s not the thrill of speed; 250cc is considered a big bike in China and it’s really all you need to keep up with the slow moving traffic. I’ve spent a lot of time with Chinese riders and even with the language barrier I get that they ride for the same reasons we do: The road, the rain, the wind. After being cooped up in a high rise apartment (very few Chinese live in single-family homes) I imagine the wide-open spaces between crowded cities must seem like heaven. They did to me. Chinese motorcyclists and Low Riders ride a little slower, taking long breaks to smoke a cigarette, drink in the scenery or just nap. Every motorcyclist you meet is instantly your dear friend because we share this passion and despite all the minor regulatory hassles everybody knows love conquers all.

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The Wayback Machine: Pit Noir

By Joe Gresh

It’s March in central Florida, cool and clear. I get the call from Ed in the late afternoon. A couple of his California friends are racing motorcycles in the 600cc class. He wants me to help them out. The sun is setting low over Lake Schimmerhorn, the sky a blood-orange deepening to cobalt blue high overhead. White, high-persistence contrails cross the sky in an Atlanta-Orlando direction. The scene outside the Love Shack looks like a flag from The Republic of Kodachrome. “Yeah” I say, gently pulling the wrapper of a grape Jolly Rancher. The candy rotates clockwise between my fingers. “I’ll go.”

“Cool, you met Jeff and Beaver at the retirement party held after the anniversary party,” Ed said. “Remember Torrance?” In the background I hear a machine scraping metal: another of Ed’s big-block Moto-Guzzis. The man can’t leave motorcycles alone.

“Torrance?  Yeah, I remember, my wife said Jeff seemed kind of depressed. Happily married, good corporate job; didn’t he give up racing?”

“He did, then he didn’t,” said Ed. “Look for the Baby Appleseed pits. Get there early tomorrow, I told them you’re coming.”

It’s 38 degrees in the morning. My Italian-era Husqvarna 510 stumbles and stalls, then lights off on the fourth push of the button. I rev the engine and slip the clutch on the Husky’s tall first gear. A sloppy, brapp-brapp snarls out of the pipe and ricochets from aluminum singlewide trailers to sway-backed modular homes. I turn right onto Highway 40. Open the throttle and the Husky’s tachometer rips past 9000 rpm, front wheel climbing on the surge. Two, three, four, five, six, shift as fast as you can, man.

I’ve got to keep the front down. It’s dark. Highway 40 is damp with morning dew. The headlamp flickers intermittently between low beam and parking light, low beam and parking light. It’s a random problem and one I can’t solve. Oncoming cars dip their headlights, thinking I’m flashing them. I wish I could stop and explain Italian motorcycle electrical systems but there’s no time. It’s cold. My hands hurt.

At the very end of Pit Row the black, the white and red Baby Appleseed logo is splashed across two huge gazebo tents. I guess with Ed involved I expected one rusty Craftsman toolbox and a mid-eighties Moto-Guzzi Alfresco. I’d find Jeff and Beaver slumped over, gently sobbing. Beaver’s greasy jeans would have holes in both knees.

Pit row, Daytona.

“What’s the problem, boys?” My confident tone would instantly buck them up. “The bike has a high rpm miss, Gresh, we’ve been trouble shooting the damn thing for days.” I’d get in there and clean the fuel filter, maybe straighten a bent metering needle and the bike would run perfect, you know, save the day.

Baby Appleseed’s pit has two mechanics, electric tire warmers and a second rider, Neils, owner of the high-end baby furniture company sponsoring the team. There’re computers to track lap times, 120 volt AC generators and air compressors.

Both Appleseed motorcycles are decked out in Baby Appleseed racing colors. Back in the dry pits there’s a motorhome with a full-body Baby Appleseed wrap parked in front of a dual-axle Baby Appleseed trailer stocked with Baby Appleseed race parts. The mechanics wear Baby Appleseed logoed race shirts. Jeff has qualified in the front row for race one. To the untrained observer it appears they’re doing ok without me.

“My wife was worried about you.” I tell Jeff, “At that party in Torrance she said you seemed unhappy, settling for security.”

Jeff looks at me, grins, “I’m down to 140 pounds, I’ve been training every day, running. You’ve got to be light to keep up with these kids.”

“She’s sort of an Empath.” I explain, “Like Deanna Troy on Star Trek. When I told her you were racing again she got a little teary-eyed.” Jeff nods, unsure of the protocol. I better close it out. “Anyway, people tell her everything, man. I mean, people she’s never met spill their life story within two minutes.”

“Um,” Jeff says, “Tell her I’m ok. Tell her I’m happy.”

We’re watching the race feed one of the pit monitors. Jeff’s dicing for the lead, the crew is wound up tight. Two laps in, the front tire pushes and Jeff wads the Baby Appleseed bike, a hundred mile per hour get-off. Mostly we see a cloud of dust as the bike tumbles through the infield. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the monitor. There’s Jeff walking away. Collective relief: “That’s all right then, we can fix the bike.” I think that was Neils’ dad.

By the time I get to the dry pits the bodywork on Jeff’s bike is already gone. Every part that sticks out is either broken, bent, or ground off. One mechanic is removing forks, the other removes the mangled sub-frame then goes back to pit row. Neils is still racing. Jeff surveys the damaged bike, “Damn. We don’t need this extra work.” The bike has to be fixed by 7 PM, when the dry pits close. I better help sort things out.

The bike is down to the frame and motor. “Can I do anything to help?”

The mechanic stops wrenching on the triple clamps, thinks three beats. “Uh, yeah, drain the gas from the wrecked tank.” I grab the tank, “What do you want me to put it into?”

The mechanic looks up again, “What?”

I hold the tank up, “The gas. Where you want it?”

He looks around the pits, “ Um, I don’t know, see if you can find an empty can in the trailer.” He goes back to the triple clamps. Jeff is sweeping the work area, picking up small bits of motorcycle. The mechanics dodge around us to work on the bike.

The trailer is locked. I go back to the pits. “Sorry to bug you again, man, the trailer is locked. Do you have a key?” Water runs from a radiator hose into a plastic, 5 gallon bucket.

“The key? It’s locked?” Hands dripping, “Lemme see if it’s in here.” He searches the top tray of his rollaway toolbox. “Damn, it was here.” He scans the pit area, “I don’t know where it went. Listen, I got to get this radiator off.”

I find Neils, still in his leathers. He just pulled in after a solid race, finishing 20-something out of 60 bikes. I ask him if he has a key to the trailer.

“What?” Sweat runs down his face, “Find my dad, I think he has one.” I wander past the trailer. The door is open. Beaver is inside. There’s an assortment of cans.

“Which can should I use to drain the gas from the smashed tank?” I ask.

“What?” Beaver replies, putting down two replacement wheels.

“I need to drain the gas from the old tank.”

“Oh, um…take this one.” Beaver hands me a can.

“You got a funnel?” The other mechanic is back. He’s sliding a new fork leg into new a new set of triple clamps.

“What?” He stops sliding the leg.

“A funnel, to pour the gas into this can.” I hold up the can Beaver gave me.

“Don’t use that can. Use the one under that pile of bodywork. I don’t want it mixed up.” I move a broken plastic tailpiece and there’s a can underneath. The fill opening is one inch wide.

“Man, I hate to bug you, I need a funnel.”

The mechanic stops working on the forks and gives a hunted look around the pit area, “Jeff, find this guy a funnel.”

“Look in that box on the rolling tray.” Jeff says. I find three big, red funnels. I fit the funnel and begin to pour the gas from the bent tank into the can.

“Hey! Put a sock on that funnel!” The first mechanic yells at me, putting down the handle bar he was about to install.

“A sock?” I have no idea what he is talking about. Jeff hands me a cloth filter with a sewn-in elastic edge to stretch over the wide end of the funnel. I fit the filter and pour the gas.

“Watch what you’re doing!” There’s a puddle of gas on the floor. I’m so intent on not missing the funnel mouth I don’t notice that the tank’s internal vent tube is pissing gas. It’s a like a frigging geyser, man. Tipping the tank upright increases the flow, broadcasting a liberal dose of high-octane race fuel around the pit area. Both mechanics drop their tools and run over with rags. They start mopping up the spill.

“We got to clean this up! If the AMA guys see this they’ll freak out, you can’t have pools of gas laying around in here!”

Beaver appears beside me and guides me by the elbow away from the spill. “Can you give me a hand moving the gear from pit row?” We walk out to the Baby Appleseed tents on pit row, a distance of some 300 yards. Beaver hands me two cartons of water, I walk back to the trailer. Next trip Beaver hands me three tires to carry, I take them back to the trailer, then a big stack of sprockets.

There’s one of those folding carts parked at the tents. Beaver hands me the portable generator. The damn thing is heavy. “Can I use that cart?”

“No.” Beaver says, “It’s easier to carry the stuff.” I move gear back and forth from pit row to the trailer. Late in the afternoon I glance over at the pits, Jeff’s bike is rebuilt and has passed tech inspection.

The next day Jeff’s rebuilt bike runs near the front all day long and in a photo finish misses the podium by inches. I call my wife with the results. She’s happy, she tells me Jeff is doing what he’s supposed to be doing. The sky turns blood-orange deepening into cobalt-blue high overhead. The Baby Appleseed team is upbeat, they’ve got an entire racing season ahead of them. I only hope they can do as well when I’m not around.

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Nose Job: 1971 Yamaha RT1-B Front End Refresh

By Joe Gresh

The Yamaha RT1-B 360cc that I call Godzilla has been my long haul dirt bike choice for years. The old Yamaha has criss-crossed the country on dirt and on pavement and I had it set up to carry a lot of gasoline and a lot of gear. Up front, I removed the non-functional speedometer/tachometer cluster and replaced it with a luggage rack. The rack worked great, it redistributed the weight of my travel gear and made the bike handle less worse than if everything was strapped to the back rack.

I crashed in Beaver, Utah a few years ago and mangled the front rack so I removed it for future repairs. While I was at it I got rid of the cheesy GPS mount that fit a GPS I no longer owned. Truthfully, I don’t need that stuff because haven’t been doing any long distance dirt rides lately. It seems like all my rowdy friends have settled down. Anyway, with that junk out of the way the view from the saddle was kind of sparse. I decided to freshen up Godzilla’s front end.

I rode Godzilla for many years with the stock handlebars (bottom bars) and they were fine. The last couple rides my wrists started hurting a bit and I think the sweep back angle was causing too much stress on my decrepit body. The bars on the Husky are almost flat across and very comfortable so I bought a new, lower, flatter bar (top bar). The new bar has no cross brace and is made of powder-coated aluminum; I’m hoping they flex a bit more to smooth out the really rough trails where I tend to crash.

After replacing the handlebars my horn quit working. I figured that the process of removing and replacing the switch must have disturbed the rust inside so I dismantled and cleaned out the three switches in the control module. The horn button was really rusty and the other switches looked none too good, either.

After all that work on the switches the horn still didn’t beep. The Yamaha wiring supplies the horn with power and the horn button grounds the circuit through the handlebars, triple clamps, and steering head bearings then on to the frame, which is grounded. This convoluted electrical path makes the horn go beep. I took the headlight apart and grounded the horn wire inside the headlight housing. It worked. Then I grounded the horn to the new handlebars: nothing. Turns out, powder coat is an effective electrical isolator. Instead of scraping the powder coat off to make a connection I ran an extra ground wire to the switch pod. Now I had a horn.

For a speedometer I decided to try one of those cableless, GPS, analog types from Amazon. The voltage input on the speedo is 9 to 32 volts and the thing powered up fine on Godzilla’s 6-volt battery. Since this fancy electronic wizardry was all new to me I also bought a 6-volt to 12-volt converter to make sure the speedo had plenty of voltage. All this junk needed to go somewhere so I made a LeCrox template and chopped the side out of a storage cabinet for sheet metal.

After bending and welding the gauge console I gave it a lick of spot putty and some black paint to hide the sins of my welding. Next all the pieces went into the housing and I pre-wired the speedometer so that it would plug into an unused, key-switched, 6-volt power wire inside the headlight.

I used the existing Yamaha speedo/tach mounting base by adding a couple rubber lord mounts and assembled the whole mess onto the motorcycle. It powered up fine and was ready for a test ride.

The test ride was a failure. Not because of the speedo (it worked great), but the cantilevered gauge console flexed the rubber mounts so much the gauge was dancing up and down like a set of those humorous, wind up chattering teeth. It was back to the shop for a quick brace on the front of the console.

I used the high beam indicator hole on the headlight shell and ran a short brace to another lord mount that steadied the gauge nicely. Now I can bang around in the dirt without the speedometer trying to slap me upside the head. Hopefully it won’t push the headlight aim down.

To finish off the front-end facelift I bought a new mirror to replace the crappy bar-end mirror. The old bar-end mirror was a bicycle part and never worked very well. It was there for legal, not visual reasons. The new mirror gives me a fairly clear view of what is going on behind me.

The GPS speedometer is smooth. You have to wait a few seconds while it acquires a satellite fix but from then on it seems just like a regular speedometer except it is accurate and the needle is steady. With no reception it won’t work indoors but I don’t ride far indoors. I zipped the RT1-B up to 75 miles per hour and all was well.

There are several functions you can access like different color backlights, Trip 1, Trip 2, odometer and compass. Trip 1 is sort of useless because it resets each time you turn the key off. Trip 2 supposedly saves the data and you have to hold a button for 3 seconds to clear it. The compass is a 360-degree type so you get a numerical reading instead of north, south, east and west. I’ll have to mess with the thing a little more to see how all this flimflammery works.

One thing I don’t like is that the mode and set buttons are on the back of the speedo. This is not a problem for a motorcycle because you can reach behind and push them. If the speedo was mounted in a car or boat dash this would be a deal killer. If I had it to do over I would try to find a unit with the buttons on the face. Also, it would be nice if the antenna could be incorporated into the gauge, eliminating the external antenna but that probably wouldn’t work in a car.

For a prototype my dash console works good enough. If the speedo holds up I may re-work the design a bit. If I flipped the mounting flange 180 degrees the mounting bolts would be hidden inside the console and it would move the speedo back a bit which I think would look better. As it is the gauge console has a clunky, AMF-era, Harley-Davidson look to the thing. I may remake the console using aluminum as the sheet metal one, while thin, is not very light. Godzilla is a high society motorcycle now with its modern, space age speedometer; I guess there’s nothing more for me to do but to join my peers down at the local Starbucks.

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Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

By Joe Berk

The turnaround point for our New Mexico trip was the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.  We had talked about it for years, and it combined nicely with our stops in Tucson and Alamogordo (and the visit to Tinfiny Ranch).  I shot all the photos in this blog with my iPhone.  I had the big Nikon D810 and its boat anchor 24-120 lens with me, but my leg was acting up (an old motorcycle accident injury) and I couldn’t lug that thing around any longer on this trip.  I might have shot better photos with the Nikon, or I might not have shot any at all if I didn’t have my cell phone.  Adapt, improvise, overcome.

The deal on our visit to the Balloon Fiesta was a tour group.  It’s really the only practical way to get in to see the balloons.  Here’s the deal:  Albuquerque’s population is 550,000 people (it’s the biggest city in New Mexico).  The Balloon Fiesta, however, draws a cool one million visitors.  Just getting to the field where the balloons lift off would take an hour or more due to the crush, and if you did that, you’d have to park far away to find a parking spot.  If you’re part of a tour group, however, you ride on the tour group’s buses from your hotel to the balloon field, and they take you right up to the gate.  The City of Albuquerque has done this event for years and they have it dialed.  They designate special bus lanes during Balloon Fiesta week.   Logistically, it’s a much better approach.

What the City can’t control is the weather, and hot air balloons are sensitive to the weather.  If there are electrical storms, low visibility, rain, or high winds, the balloon’s won’t lift off.  And there were plenty of all these conditions that week.  Our tour grip told us we’d be making three trips to the balloon field, but there were no guarantees we’d get to see the balloons lift off during any of our visits.  Two of our visits were early morning affairs (we arrived at the field before sunup), and another one was in the late afternoon.

The Balloon Fiesta field periphery is lined with vendors.

During our first early morning arrival, it was cold and too windy for the balloons to lift off.   The balloon fiesta had a backup plan, though, and in the distant skie we observed a light display.  At first I thought there was a large board with lights, but then the display lifted into the pre-dawn sky.  I learned it was all down with multiple computer-controlled drones.  That was impressive.

Cell phone photography is like halitosis…it’s better than no breath at all. Each of these lights is carried by a single drone. They were probably a mile away when I took this photo.

The images changed.  We couldn’t see or hear the drones, and there was nothing from our location that would indicate they were drones.  It was impressive.

A Puebloe Native American symbol, commandeered as the image on the New Mexico flag. This is the area where we had breakfast. Breakfast was a part of the tour package.

During our second visit, which occurred in the afternoon, the wind conditions weren’t acceptable and there was a thunderstorm moving in, which prevented the balloons from ascending.  But it allowed a parachute display, and I grabbed a few photos of it.

Selection.com is a personnel agency.

Evidently the smoke generators the parachutists used create debris.  One particle hit me in the face.  Fortunately, it caught me in the cheek and not in my eye.  That would have made for an interesting lawsuit.

Another photo of the parachutists.

Even though it was too risky for the balloons to inflate and ascend, there was a lot going on.  It was fun walking around and taking iPhone pictures.

A fire truck at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

Our third and last visit to the balloon fiesta field was on a brisk Sunday morning and it was the charm.  After being skunked on two prior visits, the word was out:  The balloons had the okay to inflate and liftoff.  The winds were suitably low, visibility was good, and there were no looming electrical storms.  It was a go for a mass ascension, which kind of sounds like a religious experience.  In a way, it almost was.

Balloons inflating after recieving the go ahead. You walk in amongst the balloons. It’s all very exciting.

In a strange kind of way, being in the middle of the mass ascension kind of reminded me of seeing the whales in Baja. You go out in a small boat and for a while, nothing happens. Then you see a lone whale spout in the distance (like that one balloon you see going up in the photo above). Then, suddenly, there are whales spouting all around you, and then they are right up close to the boat. The balloon fiesta is a lot like that. Nothing happens at first, then you get very excited when you see that single first balloon ascend. Then, suddenly, balloons are going up all around you.

Our first balloon going up.
Then, suddenly, there are balloons everywhere.
The cell phone was doing a decent job for me. I would have liked having the D810 with me, but it was not meant to be. Maybe next time.
The colors, and the vibrance, was off the charts. The balloon fiesta is a photographer’s paradise.
Approximately 650 balloons ascended within about 30 minutes. It was impressive.
Several of the balloons were more complex shapes, like this Felix the Cat version. There were turkeys and other shapes as well.
This last photo is a panoramic shot, in which you manually sweep the camera through an arc (in this case, about 180 degrees). The iPhone does a suprisingly good job. The actual image is a little over 16,000 pixels wide.

A question several of my friends asked is:  Did we go up in a balloon?  The answer to that is no.  You have to make a reservation far in advance to get a seat in one of the balloons (we had not), it costs several hundred dollars, and truth be told, I wasn’t too sure about doing it.  Joe Gresh, whom we visited on our trek to Albuquerque, had done it in the past and he told us he and Colleen enjoyed it.  Maybe next time.

If you have any thoughts about visiting the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, my advice is to go for it, and to do it through a tour agency for the reasons listed above.  It’s a bucket list sort of thing to do.   We went with the Road Scholars tour group, they did a great job for us, and they kept us busy for the three days we were in Albuquerque.

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The Wayback Machine: What do you have in your project bank?

By Joe Gresh

There are more ways to measure wealth than money. Sure, traditionalists rely on a strict net worth approach, adding up the figures on electronic statements in a system where the winner is whoever has the highest number. You can count all sorts of things, though. You can count friends, you can count grandchildren, you can count experiences: These are forms of wealth that won’t show up on that balance email from the bank.

When it comes to future projects I am a very wealthy man. I’ve got them lined up out the door and around the corner. And my account keeps growing; with compound interest my Project Bank doubles every seven years. Most of these projects will never see the light of day but they remain secure in my thoughts, if not in my actions.

On of my largest assets is the 4-speed Suburban project. When I bought the ’90 ‘Burb it came with a malfunctioning automatic transmission. I hate automatics and malfunctioning ones even more so. The 700R4 works in Drive and Reverse but not in 1-2-3. The truck runs fine and it will tote a 3000-pound load without complaint but that boring automatic has got to go. It’s a rare Suburban that came with a 4-speed from the factory and even rarer to see a ½-ton version. I’ve only seen one 4-speed ‘Burb and it was ¾-on. This project keeps earning interest and I’ve been training a weather eye on Internet sale sites for a cheap, manual transmission, 4X4 GM truck to steal the guts from. I found a late model, 4X4-IFS 1/2-ton truck with a 5-speed and a nice FI engine that ran well but the transfer case and transmission housing were broken and besides everything was on the wrong side for the old straight axle suburban.

The chalky blue, 1974 MG GT came with Tinfiny Ranch and was listed as an out building on the deed. This car was on the chopping block until I started reading about MG’s with Buick 215 cubic-inch aluminum engine swaps. I really have to stay off the internet. The Buick engine triples the horsepower, doesn’t weigh much more than the iron 4-banger it replaces and sounds cool as hell revved up to 6000 RPM. This is one asset I kind of wish was not in my Project Bank as I’ve never been that interested in cars. Still, it’s there waiting on me.

Tinfiny Ranch itself is a huge source of endless work, but beyond the physical plant The Ranch continues to deposit surprises into my Project Bank. This Merry Tiller project revealed itself as I was hauling away two, multi-panel garage doors. The doors sections were stacked with spacers in the popular rat-paradise fashion and I gave chase to a couple fat rats but they got away from me in the thick brush down by the ravine. The Merry Tiller looks like it will come in handy for the raised-bed vegetable garden (yet another deposit in The Project Bank) I’m planning for the back yard. The engine on the tiller is not stuck and being a Briggs & Stratton I’m sure it will run so I’m leaving it in The Bank for safe keeping.

I will never be bored or lonely. My Project Bank is overflowing with cool things that need time and attention. After I level the back yard I’m going to build a shear wall for the shed, then I need to get back on the Zed. After that I’d like to pop a 6-cylinder + AX15 transmission into Brumby the Jeep. The Suburban needs new paint; I’m going to change it from black to white so it will be cooler inside. Better yet I’ll fix the air-conditioner, it’s all there except for the compressor. I really need a second rain barrel, too, as I’m leaving water on the table with only 2500 gallons of storage.

The projects pile one atop the other and the magnitude of the undertaking gives me a great sense of importance. When I die I want to be buried like a Viking in his ship except my grave will be filled with all the unfinished projects that kept me company while I was alive. You really can take it with you, mainly because no one else wants your junk.

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Fighting Mud With Mud

By Joe Gresh 

ExhaustNotes readers may think I pour a lot of concrete but that’s not really true. I do pour concrete frequently but only a little at a time. My limiting factor is how much total work I can get done in one day. That number dwindles as I grow older. I pour 30 to 40 60-pound bags of 4000 psi concrete on average. Any more and I start to have problems keeping up the finish work and any less is not worth getting the tools dirty. Cleanup takes a lot of time and if you don’t wash everything each time your tools become encrusted with dried concrete. It’s never fun to work with heavy, dirty tools.

Take my latest project, the driveway in front of the little shack we call The Carriage House.  In an attempt to class up the place I am removing the existing driveway, which consisted of remnants of old rugs thrown over dirt. We acquired the rugs from a Physical Therapy training center. The PT rugs were in great condition and very sturdily constructed. Best of all they were free. The rugs served us well for many years by adding a semi-pervious layer between our feet and the dirt below. Engineered earth is the technical term, I think, for fabric-supported fill.

Of course, old rugs aren’t the most perfect solution for driveways or everyone would be using them. You’d see them in Beverly Hills or New York City, not just in poverty stricken rural areas. After several years the rugs become impregnated with dirt and are impossible to vacuum, much less shampoo. Being semi-pervious you still get mud underneath the rug although you don’t sink in as far as you would if going bare earth.

For this driveway I’m using a decorative finishing method called No Need To Square.  No Need To Square means just that: the concrete is formed and finished in a random pattern giving the illusion of being made from many individual pavers. No Need To Square frees the concrete from The Man’s rigid, conformist hierarchy. It allows the finisher to follow the jagged contours found in the crystalline structure of cast Iron like you see in those electron-microscope photographs. The only constant is the slope that steers water runoff towards the drainage ditch running alongside The Carriage House.

Just as a cubist must master fine arts before experimenting with abstract art, the concrete finisher must master the square before leaving it far behind. Unfortunately, I am neither an artist nor a concrete finisher so things can go pear shaped quickly if you don’t mind your grades.

I’ve purchased a new tool for this driveway project: a belt-mounted tie wire spool. Tie wire is used to tie rebar together so that it doesn’t shift position when the concrete pours into the form or clumsy finishers kick it around when striking off. I owned a spool many years ago when I was a construction worker. My old one was more open, like a cage. You could see the wire in the spool, unlike this new one. I don’t know what happened to that old spool.

You’d think as often as I do little concrete pours I would have bought a wire spool sooner and I would have except for the price. The things are like $47 at Home Depot for an off-brand spool. I found a Klein brand spool on Amazon for only a dollar more than the clone version at HD. I’ve seen cheaper, plastic versions and they probably work fine.

There are basically two types of ties for re-bar: the saddle for tying re-bars that cross at right angles and the plain old loop for tying straight pieces together. I like to make up a bunch of each type before starting to tie. Real iron workers make up saddles and loops as they go so because it’s faster and they don’t have to carry a bunch of little, pre-made bits.  I’m never in a hurry. Sitting in a chair with New Mexico’s warm, winter sun shining down on me gives the pre-tying process a sort of Zen-like quality. Sometimes I fall into a trance and end up making 600 of the things.

If you’ve tied much wire you know how easily an unspooled roll of wire can unwind and get tangled up. Pulling wire from the center results in a pig’s tail that you need to straighten out before using. I always double up my wires, as a single strand is easy to break when twisting the rebar tight. The doubling method uses twice as much wire but it makes for a secure grid of rebar. It’s also easy to get stabbed with tie wire and the spool allows you to wind it back inside for the safety of everyone involved on the project.

I’m going to tackle the driveway in two parts: the southern and northern wings. I’ll do the southern (higher) side first. That will give CT somewhere to park while I work on the northern (lower) section. I expect to be working on the southern section for a month or so before the weather gets too cold and I take a break and go back to tying up loose ends on motorcycles.

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